


From Here On Out

by word_dissociation



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, also lots of headcanons. dont worry. just roll with it, this is the closest i'll ever get to like an office fic so enjoy it while you can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 06:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15701637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/word_dissociation/pseuds/word_dissociation
Summary: To think, today would mark the day he’d begin his true calling, and therefore the rest of his life. He was sure he’d never forget it.





	From Here On Out

**Author's Note:**

> now that mml is back in sight i feel... Rejuvenated. and i wanted to burn my energy on something kind of short
> 
> important headcanons for context i guess: cavendish started at the b.o.t.t. as a sort of mechanic/IT guy until he annoyed his way into becoming an agent, dakota started off as an agent, but... he kind of fell from grace. what happened ? use your imagination
> 
> and hey, enjoy !

Balthazar Cavendish is carefully smoothing his hair back with his fingers, peering keenly into the reflection of his monitor, when he hears his communicator go off somewhere in the room. He spends a few minutes scrambling and peaking under chairs, desks, and through drawers before he realizes it’s been in his lab coat, hanging along the back of his chair all along. He answers it before the call can get lost.

 

“Cavendish speaking,” He takes to leaning on his desk.

“Hey, it’s me,” The voice on the other end is deep and just on the rougher side, belonging to his new partner, who he has yet to see. Though they’ve talked and sent each other messages to each other once or twice. “Are you sure we can’t just meet at Float Cone or something? I know we’d have to meet up earlier than we talked about, but it’s already pretty close to lunch time…”

 

“Ice cream is not lunch,” Cavendish scoffs. Truth be told lunch might cut away some of the awkwardness of meeting face to face for the first time, but he’s too worked up to eat. “And no! It’s very important that we both get to the right place at the right time. Go right to the-”

 

“The main building, left corridor, third door to the right, I know.” He says. “Meet ya down there.”

 

“Yes, see you then.” And with that he puts his communicator down, hesitating a moment before going back to his hyper-vigilant preening.

 

And how could he help it? It’s not every day you get to meet your first partner for briefing on your first mission; a real, actual time-travel mission, no doubt something with danger and intrigue and action. Cavendish had been insisting for months upon months that he was ready for one, tired of being stymied as- well- as a help-desk technician for the real agents. All he needed was a partner, and finally, they had found somebody who he supposed wouldn’t hold him back. And he seemed friendly enough, from their brief encounters, obviously not somebody who’d… well, gotten the wrong picture in their head about him. Thinking on it, Cavendish hadn’t heard very much about him either, but he decided to focus on that as a positive as well. At least that meant he wasn’t a gloryhound. How insufferable would  _ that  _ be.

He’d been trying to get at least a vague read on him for months now, trying to picture him in his head. He spoke very casually, threw in what Cavendish assumed he thought was a joke every now and again… maybe he was supposed to be the muscle while Cavendish went about being the brains. Thinking about his voice, it wasn’t too hard to assume… deep, gruff, maybe he was tall. Or on the muscular side. He’d been an agent for a while now, from what Cavendish could tell, that had to lend something to one’s physique. He was probably handsome, too. That seemed like part of the application process for most.

 

Cavendish pulled his coat on, trying to rub some of the buzz out of his temples, thinking he ought to get a head start out, just to walk off some of his jitters. To think, today would mark the day he’d begin his true calling, and therefore the rest of his life. He was sure he’d never forget it.

 

* * *

 

Cavendish realized it was a good decision to head out early, it was probably best he and his partner got all the finer parts of introducing themselves out of the way before debriefing started. He was confident a more seasoned time traveler would agree, so he felt confident in assuming that he wouldn’t be the only one to arrive early, though as he approached the door he was looking for he couldn’t spot anybody who seemed like it would be him. It was maybe a little foolish to assume he would just somehow know when he saw him. Luckily there was another employee not too far from him in the hallway, failing at trying to cover up the not-so-subtle way he was trying to scratch at his backside.

 

“Excuse me,” Cavendish waved weakly to get his attention. “I’m looking for a Vincent Dakota? He should be somewhere around here.”

 

“You got him,” He extended his hand for a shake. “Though, y’know, I prefer Vinnie.”

“Buh?” Cavendish mustered, weakly, mind reeling a little from cognitive dissonance. Dakota didn’t seem to notice.

 

“You must be Cavendish, right?” Dakota stopped waiting for Cavendish to take his hand and instead grabbed and shook it himself. “Good to finally meet ya.”

 

Cavendish probably looked nothing short of a fish suddenly and spontaneously thrust onto land as he took his new partner in. He was not at  _ all  _ what he’d been expecting, picturing in his mind as they talked over comms. He was shorter than Cavendish, and undeniably on the pudgy side, and overall he looked less like an agent for a secret time-travelling organization and more like someone who sold spray-painted shirts on a boardwalk. But the easy, warm smile he was giving Cavendish did make it seem like it  _ was  _ in fact good to finally meet him. And his hair was very, very curly, and he had a strong, charming nose that scrunched to push the visors he had sitting on it up.

 

In his professional opinion… he supposed he wasn’t too shabby. Only professionally speaking, of course.

 

“Yes. Likewise,” Cavendish regained his composure just soon enough to briskly shake his hand back. Then he took notice of his uniform. “You- You’re class two?”

 

“Oh, hah, nah,” Dakota pinched the front of his uniform out a little. “This thing’s still kind of old, haven’t gotten a new one yet. I got demoted.”

 

“Demoted?” Oh, no. This was not promising.

 

“Yeah, it’s a long story- but, hey, congrats on the promotion, though,” Dakota gave him a friendly pat.

 

“Right,” Cavendish murmured, weakly. “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

He was still hanging onto hope and confidence even after Block had herded both of them into the room, flicked their respective debrief folders, and then barked explanations and admittedly creative insults at both of them through mouthfuls of mixed nuts. The mission, like his partner, was hardly what he was expecting either. It didn’t even sound like much, both as he read it and as it was verbally hurled in his direction. Trees. It was trees.

 

His hopes that it wasn’t  _ just  _ trees, right, it was some sort of tree that held some kind of significant medicine, or toxin, or something more pressing at least, was dashed to pieces as Mr. Block informed him no, they were in fact, just nut trees. Nut trees they were gonna baby sit and see through that they didn’t get mulched by morning.

He tried to protest. Really he did. Meekly maybe, but he tried. But Mr. Block certainly acquainted his empty nut can very closely with Cavendish’s face and explained how there were no pistachio nuts anywhere in there, and he wanted to see that change by tomorrow. Then he sent them both to their paperwork.

 

So it wasn’t the most glamourous. That was fine. He’d gotten ahead of himself; all he had to do was see it through, prove he could take it out on the field with this one, first burner mission, and then it would be battling rapscallions all throughout time and saving the world from there on out. And then he and Mr. Block would laugh about it later. Oh, and Dakota too, he supposed.

 

* * *

 

Looking at their vehicle, he abandoned hope for pure indignation.

“This must be a joke!” He exclaimed.

 

“Could be,” Dakota said. “Mr. Block’s got a pretty bad pranking rep.”

 

Cavendish huffed and scoffed and glared at the dingy, ugly lemon of a vehicle like it was personally responsible for every single thing that had gone wrong for him. Then, seeming under just his stare, part of the front bumper fell off.

 

“Wh- Augh- look at this! How are we even supposed to operate this thing- if it even works!”

 

“Aw, c’mon, they wouldn’t waste garage space if it was  _ totally  _ busted.” Dakota shrugged. “Maybe we can fix it up a little.”

 

Just what Cavendish wanted to do. Go back to fixing technical messes. “I  _ specifically  _ filed for a new vehicle! We should be driving the Mach YT7!”

 

“ _ That’s  _ what you asked for?” Dakota asked. “That thing’s got nitrous!”

 

“I KNOW!” Cavendish pinched the bridge of his nose. “And what do I get instead? Blasted- standard transmission!”

 

“C’mon, it’s not the end of the world. Look,” Dakota pointed in, through the window. “It’s got cup holders.”

 

“They might as well have one of us pull the other along in a little red wagon,” Cavendish argued. “At least that would be less embarrassing for somebody to see.”

 

“Would it?” Dakota asked. “Really?”

 

“...No.” Cavendish scowled. “Let’s just fix the blasted thing.”

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take long for Cavendish to get his tool box from his office, various transmission fluids and fuels from the closet, and at Dakota’s request, two sodas, and then make it back to the garage. At the moment he was laying under the car on a creeper, trying to tighten up everything below to prevent any leaking. Dakota had popped the hood, asking for direction every now and again as he worked on it.

 

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

 

“What?”

 

“What’s with the lab coat.”

 

Cavendish slowed for just a moment. “It’s… for when I work in my lab. Obviously.”

 

“You have a lab?” Dakota took a brief gulp of soda. “Why? Aren’t you like, the fix-it guy.”

 

“ _ Yes _ , I have a lab!” In truth, it wasn’t technically a lab. Or really an office. Technically, it was more of a deserted storage closet with just enough room for Cavendish to set up shop in, as he told the bureau's best and brightest repeatedly to try turning their devices off and then on again.

 

“Huh. Alright.” Another beat of quiet, and then. “So why’d you want to go out into the field?”

 

“Are you serious?” Cavendish rolled out from underneath their vehicle.

 

“Yeah. I mean, doesn’t sound like a bad set up. Dakota closed one of the caps of the car and closed the lid, leaning on it. “What, do you like, play holo-games when it gets slow? Sounds pretty good to me.”

 

Cavendish raised his brows. “Unbelievable,” He all but softly gasped. “You’re a moron.”

 

“Hey,” Dakota said, though only mildly annoyed than really hurt. “I’m just sayin’.”

 

He rolled his eyes and rolled back under. “Well then don’t say anything about it. It’ll be too soon if anybody asks me how to stop getting their com-screen to stop turning pink again.”

 

Above him, he could hear Dakota make some noncommittal, half-heartedly defeated mumble. He could see, in his peripheral, as Dakota went back and forth between the tool box and the car, as he straightened one of the wonky headlights and popped the front back into place. He seemed to ramble about nothing as they went on getting the buggy back into some semblance of working order, though when Cavendish rolled back out and up and Dakota chucked off the gloves Cavendish had leant him, it still looked ugly as all sin. Dakota spit on a particularly greasy area and buffed it out with his sleeve.

 

“Augh- Don’t  _ spit  _ on it,” The protest was weak, however. It probably wasn’t the worst thing this vehicle faced, or had yet to face. He looked at their handiwork. He at least felt slightly more confident in its ability to run, even if he felt confident in nothing else. Both of them looked between it and each other for a moment, before Dakota spoke up again.

 

“Well,” He twisted a crick out of his neck. “I think I’m gonna go grab some dinner. How ‘bout it?”

 

At the beginning of the day, Cavendish would have found a coworker inviting him to dinner to be the most astounding thing of the day. Something told him his suspension of disbelief was going to suffer wildly from here on out. He supposed, at least now, it could be worse. At least he finally knew someone. Small victories and all.

 

“Fine. How do you feel about Chinese?”


End file.
